Sorry for the delay in posting! We just have been extremely busy at the Orphanage!
So We arrived here last Monday, bringing with us a 50kg bag of rice to give and found there to be 4 other volunteers already staying at the orphanage( 2 Americans and 2 Dutch girls) and 3 other people who had arrived at the same time as us. We had brought our bags with us hoping to have a bed as we plan to stay for a month and had been told by email we could stay but all the beds were taken with even the owner and his family sleeping on the floor! Fortunately for us 3 of the girls where planing to leave sometime that week and kindly offered to give us their bed( thanks Gerina and Ilse!) which is located in a room built next to the school house, just up the road from the main centre. The Girls stayed in the city and would travel back out to help with the classes each day. Unfortunetly for Gerina her bag was taken while sleeping in a dorm room at a guesthouse, and lost all her money, passport, camera etc It has been a huge hassle for her to organise replacing this in Cambodia and has taken days of paperwork etc They then have to travel to Bangkok to get a new passport and are hoping this will be done before their flight to Bali for new years! Nearly everyone we have meet has had this happen to them in some form of another so we are being very careful when we go into the city and never let our bag etc out of our sight!
So back to the orphanage. Save the poor children in Asia (S.C.A.O) is located in a village about 15 mins outside of Phnom Penh. It is run by Mr Samith and his wife and they provide a home for 17 children ( 2 of their own) who have come from families who can not afford to look after them or send them to school. They range in age from 2 1/2 to 18 years old. They all attend Khmer school (which costs) as well as the free english school SCAO provides. Some of the older children attend university with the help from donations and sponsorships from people around the world to help pay the fees. check out their website savechildreninasia.org they really are doing amazing work for the children here. They provide free english classes to the children from around the village which is about 100 kids that come to classes 6 days a week. We take 4 classes a day, 8am- 10am, 2pm-4pm, 5.30pm-6.30pm and 6.30pm- 7.30pm. the classes are all at different levels from just starting to learn english so ABC's right up to where you can have a conversation and pretty much understand what each other is talking about! it makes for a very long day but is very much worth it! SCAO provide books and pencils etc to all students for free and at Xmas time we will have a big party for all the children to come and eat and Mr Samith would like to give all the kids a present, i think he is wanting to provide toothbrushes for all the children! The children at the centre are very excited that we are staying for Xmas and we are looking forward to it as well. We would like to give a small present to each of the kids, so we will use some of the gifts we brought with us aswell as some things from the markets here.
So we spend our days teaching and in between we try to rest but usually we are playing with the kids. We have already become quite attached to them here and it is definitely mutual for them especially the younger ones. We dread the day we have to say goodbye and have witnessed how it affects the kids, especially one certain boy Seyma (8)who will draw pictures for days after, of him and the volunteer that left. One picture made us want to cry, it was of a baby elephant holding a mother elephants tail with the words above baby- Seyma and mother- Ginger( a volunteer who left when we arrived). She had been here for around 2-3 weeks i think. I think he has some abandonment issues and he will then act up in class for a couple days. So we do not look forward to the day we leave after being here so long!
On a happier note the kids are all so amazing! When we are so tired and we do not want to get out of bed, seeing the big smiles on there face and greeting us with a hug makes it all worth while!
The Dutch girls organised the purchase of a fridge(which they did not have) with the help from donations from their friends and family. The day the fridge arrived was so amazing to see, young Seyma ran and jumped into my arms yelling "ïm so excited"! They are now able to keep there vegies cold and do not have to buy from the market everyday, it also have a little freezer compartment which the kids love to make ice in or freeze there water bottles! The little ones had a great time with the box as well which we turned into a house for them!
We are very well looked after here, Mr Samith has a huge heart and now introduces us as his family hehe and he always says to treat it like our own home. We are all fed very well with three meals a day which consist of rice every meal with egg in the morning and vegies for lunch and dinner. Usually followed by fruit of bananas, dragon fruit or mandarins.
on Saturday night we took to of the older children ( Srey Lat and Hom)out to dinner in Phnom Penh. These 2 work extremely hard, they both study all day then teach the night classes with us and then after dinner it is homework ( srey Lat has 10 subjects for high school) Then on top of this they clean etc. I take my hat of to them, i could not do what they do and do it all with a smiling face! I gave my cellphone to Srey Lat yesterday as hers broke and she did not have the money to buy a new one and was worried she would get in trouble, it wasn't working for me here on the vodafone network so it is better to give to someone who will use it.
We had a great night out with the other volunteers where we ate western food haha no rice! and drunk way to much, with the barman giving us lots of free shots and stumbled home to the guesthouse at 4am. It was so great to have a shower! ( we use a bucket to scoop water over us) and i dont think we have ever been so excited to see a flushing toilet! ( we have a sqwat toilet or one with a throne but you can not put paper down it and you have to use a bucket of water to push the contents down the pipe! It really does make you appreciate the simple things we have at home and take for granted! Walking into our $8 room on Saturday night was liking walking into a 5 star hotel for us!
I think we will spend every Saturday night in the city as it is a very full on week and by the end of it you need some time out and to eat something other than rice and drink something other than water( for me anyway!). We are still able to get a bit of a caffine fix in the village with little stalls on the road selling small glass bottles of coke for 25 cents. The first time, i had a hot coke as they were sitting on a table, i then managed to get them to understand to place one in their chilly bin for the next day for me. They soon clicked on and now they are all kept in there! Its the best damn coke i've ever had in my life i tell you! We also have discovered this amazing ice coffee which they give to us in a plastic bag. It is filled with ice and they mix coffee with condensed milk! It is perfect on a hot day (which is everyday!) and a good hit to wake us up for class! This also costs around 25 cents! These are our treats for the week and definetly help me get through the week!
It feels like we have been here alot longer than a week but we really do love it here and the kids. We have already some ideas of things we would like to put in place before we leave (one being buying a barrel to burn rubish in, they currently just throw it on the side of the road and burn it every now and then!
Its dinner time now so will update again very soon!
Love to you all!
Amy and Summer
